Latin American leaders press U.S. for drug legalization; Sheila Jackson Lee presses them to invest in Texas

Latin American leaders told U.S. lawmakers last week during the Summit of Americas in Colombia that alternative measures should be discussed in the war on drug trafficking in the region.

Legalization and decriminalization were just two measures brought up by the Latin American leaders to Obama administration officials and U.S. lawmakers who attended the Cartagena, Colombia, summit.

The summit was designed to expand trade in the Western Hemisphere.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, spoke with Latin American leaders about techniques for increasing travel and trade promoting business and tourism.

Jackson Lee said she was able to meet with with several leaders “and had the opportunity to push for more jobs to come to Texas and Houston in particular.

“I discussed the role of the small businesses in Houston and encouraged leaders of various countries to bring their business to Houston.”

The policy issues of the Cartagena summit, and the dire discussions about the escalating drug war, were overshadowed, however, by the reports of Secret Service debauchery that occurred days prior to Obama’s visit.

Reports of protective agents and military personnel engaged in sexual trysts with Colombian prostitutes dominated coverage of the president’s trip.

At the summit itself, Latin American leaders voiced frustration that narcotics cartel kingpins appeared to be looking for new countries to base their operations in light of U.S.-backed anti-narcotics trafficking measures in Mexico and Colombia, said Rep. Henry Cuellar.

“As we put the pressure on in Mexico, they are going to other places with weak civil institutions,” Cuellar, D-Laredo, said of the developing cartel strategies emerging in Latin America.

Newspaper reports support that theory.

Several members of the Sinaloa Cartel, a transnational narcotics cartel operating on Mexico’s Pacific coast, were arrested in the Dominican Republic this month.

Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez was one of the Latin American leaders who spoke to the U.S. delegation about alternative strategies.

Another was Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, who specifically urged his American allies to discuss alternative strategies that include legalization and decriminalization.

President Barack Obama and administration officials said they were reluctant to embrace alternatives as a solution in the drug war.

“I’m not somebody who believes that legalization is the path to solving this problem,” Obama told a Cartagena news conference with Colombian President Juan Santos.

Obama, though, did acknowledge that the violence of the drug war in Mexico, and the limited resources of the smaller countries in Central America and the Caribbean have leaders there “starting to feel overwhelmed.”

Cuellar said it was hard not to see the point of the Guatemalan president’s plea to just talk about other ideas.

“We’ve lost thousands of lives over there,” Cuellar said of the escalating violence south of Mexico.

“They are saying they want to do more with the U.S., but they are looking at anything else. The violence is not in the U.S., it’s there. You can feel their pain,” Cuellar said.

Although Cuellar said he is open to a dialogue about alternative strategies, he is against legalization.

Cuellar was among a half dozen U.S. lawmakers who traveled as part of the president’s delegation to Colombia for the Latin American summit.

It seems safe to assume that narcotics trafficking and trade again will be topics at the next Summit of Americas in Panama in 2015.